A storm one night
by chrysalis escapist
Summary: As the title says, a storm, inside and outside, what will it bring? Mac&Stella, with a tiny cameo by a certain quirk.


**Disclaimer:**** now that would have been a nice surprise if I did own them, but no, I don't!**

**We just had really bad weather here, and the second I had water dripping into my room I knew I had to write about it.  
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Grey all around. Buildings, skies, trees, everything grey. Different shades of grey, but colorless all the same. Flashes of light bring a slight tinge of blue; thunder tries to tear the clouds apart, leaves only traces of darker cracks as it rolls away through the earth.

She quickens her steps in the search for shelter, a spot of color in the cinereous atmosphere, visible to her only because she remembers the color of the clothes she's wearing. Streetlights flickering to life around her are contained in their own little worlds, waves of light dying down mere inches away from them.

A darker shade of grey ahead invites her. She hastens towards it, follows the ground stepping down, hoping for it to lead away into a cave. Doors yield to her pressure, with a sigh of relief she slips inside.

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He stares out the window, at the gathering clouds. Increasingly shapeless they seem to be floating right past him. Some semblance of them is floating through him.

Behind him the lab is trying to be quiet. People and machines are whispering, everything tiptoeing around him. The calm before a storm, nothing wanting to draw any attention. Just one sound buzzing through his head, a thought he doesn't want to catch.

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More grey, duller grey. She stops for a moment, waiting for her eyes to accustom. Not that she expects to see much in an abandoned subway station. Then again, she might not be the first to find shelter here. Her feet test the ground, litter, of course. Crumpled pieces of paper, sticky with print, rough surface, perfect to soak up rain.

As shapes begin to form in her vision she slowly moves further in. There isn't very far to go, a grid of metal stopping her about eight steps away from the doors. She retraces the steps, yes, eight steps from metal to glass. The confinement completed by blank concrete on either side.

A few scraps of paper are clinging to those walls. Remains of posters, announcements, someone looking for a place to stay maybe, or wanting to sell some old books. She moves closer to the bigger pieces, looking for a story behind them that could provide some distraction.

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Rain falls so straight no drop hits the window. He thinks of the people caught out there, beneath unraveling clouds. He ponders making a call, but what good would it do, it's not like he could text someone an umbrella.

The raindrops slither through his thoughts; he's unable to stop either. No dripping up where he is, but probably not down below either. A quick succession too fast for the human ear to pick out single sounds turns into a hum. Thoughts too fast to hold on to.

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She turns towards the doors again. Rain is striping through the air. Glancing upwards she sees what must have been a building, now reduced to a blotch of grey. Everything visible is gathered into drops, blurred by their speed. Not even single drops are visible.

Uncut the rain wriggles down from the clouds, strings meeting the ground, piling up puddles. Tiny waterfalls tipping down the steps, ever obedient to gravity. A taller waterfall joins from above the doors. Threads extricated from the clouds weaving together again, making a solid sheet.

She watches it fold onto the ground, layer upon layer. A film squeezes in beneath the doors. With dark amusement she thinks she could probably swim home. But during a thunderstorm you should stay out of the water, she thinks with a wry grin. Another crack of thunder is rolling through the small place, catching itself within the walls, growling fiercely as it is thrown back and forth, unable to escape.

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Unconsciously his fingers glide over his cell like the rain through the air and his thoughts through his mind. His awareness stays in save hiding. Rain blurring and lulling; thunder rolling languidly in the background, sneaking closer. He waits for it to clean the air, but it only fills the atmosphere with echoes.

He hazards a glance at his cell. Black drops gather on the screen to spell out the message he has expected: no service. His glance shifts back up to the clouds. Disturbances in communication, electromagnetic fields almost visible between the buildings. As they had been around Stella, just before the storm broke, last night.

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The film of water creeping closer is rippling with sounds. She growls at it, along with the thunder. But it doesn't flinch, just like Mac hadn't. Not that she had wanted _him_ to. Not flinch, no, but see that she had made the right choice. And that she had not made it just to annoy Sinclair. Or, on second thought, make him happy because he now believes he'll be able to hold it against her.

That must have been what had made Mac angry. She wishes she had thought of it earlier, preferably before storming out of Mac's office. She considers calling him, but even without looking she can see that any chance of a connection continues to be washed away by the rain. A small smile finds her for a second as she imagines water rising up inside the display of her cell, diffusing the words.

She wishes she had said something this morning. This is real life and not a movie where one of them dies before they can make up, but still…. As explosive as she is, she hates being angry with anybody for any length of time, or letting someone other than a suspect believe that she is. The cell comes to rest in her hand, just in case.

Her eyes turn towards the sky again, a turbid mass of grey. Or green, she thinks suddenly, like watching from underneath the water. She freezes in a sudden brightness. Everything freezes in this light from the beginning of time. Raindrops suspended in the air, shaken from their downward path by the immediate clap of thunder. Light and sound gather up everything in the way of their waves, leave only blackness behind.

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He's beginning to be amazed that there are still clouds left. They should have dissolved by now with all the water coming down. Somewhere behind the buildings they must connect to the ocean, a conspiracy of nature to win the land back. All life returning to where it came from. And tears running down the faces of buildings, mourning the loss of their inhabitants.

He feels like he's looking down at rising water, looking down from a mountain, having separated himself from everything. Thunder ricochets between manmade mountains, interfering with its own sound waves, building up ever and ever more. Above and below, everything growling. Like the beginning of time, he thinks, or the end of it.

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She tries to move. For some moments she doesn't even seem to be able to gasp. Her limbs refuse to obey her, frozen into rigidity by the shock. Her joints creak as she slowly manages to release them from the grip of her body cramping up. Still stiff she staggers backwards a few steps, hoping to back away from the doors. Blue spasms continue flickering in her vision, driving out all other visual perception.

She draws in several measured breaths to calm herself. A series of smells assaults her. Damp, grey, dust, old color moistened, sulfur, St. Elmo's fire twisting around something before her. Damp air shining blue, wriggling. She blinks at it, color reversed while her eyes are closed, but it won't go away. Sparks, sulfur, and rubber – smoldering rubber. She tries to rub the images from her eyes, drawing tears to sooth the burning.

Slowly shapes that have been frightened into hiding by the flash of lightning come back. With every blink more and more of her surroundings return to visibility. Water forcing its way in through the doors, sparks reflecting in the smooth surface, falling into the water, rippling across it. Another blink, sparks _in_ the water.

She stumbles back a few more steps, is stopped by metal bolts pushing into her back. Bolts holding a grid firmly in place, caging her in. Metal behind her, water in front of her, and the hiss of an electric snake. She stares at the shining blackness expanding, sneaking closer. With an effort she tears her eyes away from it to look around. Dusk lying in corners, smoothing surfaces.

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He thinks he has been watching the rain forever, he sees it behind the curtains of his closed eyelids. He feels like it's a wall around him, liquid and yet impenetrable. He's not the type to be depressed by rain, but the sheer endlessness of it begins to gnaw at him, like eons of it eroding his mood.

He wishes he had told Stella this morning that he's not angry with her. Even if he had been, how could he be for long? He has to admit she was right after all, right again, as usual. If only she were sometimes a bit less adamant about it, or a bit more diplomatic about the how. He realizes that instead of at the rain he's staring at his cell now. Not that the appearance of either has changed.

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Carefully she inches her way through the space she's trapped in, training her eyes on anything that might be a piece of junk, any possible elevation. She wishes she had slept last night, but the hot weather had prevented that, not to mention the heat of the argument she had had with Mac.

She eyes the border of the shining blackness again. Click, click, click. Her eyes are drawn further in, towards the glittering sound. Ripples scoot across the surface, bumping into each other, leaving chaos behind. She wonders about the source. Her eyes wander towards the ceiling where droplets capture the dying light.

Molecule after molecule steals in from outside, searching its way along cracks, joins others. More and more gather until gravity commands them downwards. Click, click, click click click, faster and faster. Water rising, coming closer. Sporadically illuminated by another flash of lightning.

On hands and knees she gathers anything she can find, always avoiding contact with what gives itself away as being wet by telltale glimmering. She piles up a small amount of debris in the furthest corner, for once wishing people would litter more – and immediately chiding herself for it. She cowers onto the pitiful pile she has created and watches the ceiling drip, and the sparks fly, and the water closing in. Listens to the outside seeming to fall down.

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He snaps into movement, a glance at his watch telling him that he has been doing nothing for the last two hours but observe fading shades of grey shift into each other, inside and outside his head. Another glance at his cell tells him there is still no service, and no way of contacting Stella or finding out where she is.

The third time passing Sid decides to address him to find out what this lost soul is looking for. The answer is no surprise to him. He harks back in his memories to the last contact he had had with Stella. It had been one of his quirks to call her, no particular reason to do so, just something that had caught his interest and that he had wanted to share. In return she had given him a sarcastic 'wish _you_ were here' along with a seemingly meaningless location. He finds himself hoping _she _is still there.

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Damp air fills her lungs, dragging along memories washed from the walls. She huddles herself up tighter. From everywhere cold seems to creep into her, dark blue cold. Sparks, drops of light, increasing darkness. She tries to find a melody in the ticking and dripping and rolling. But all the variety of sounds combines into a monotonous lullaby. She struggles to keep her eyes open, but everything she sees seems like a dream. What is the color of time, she wonders. In here, and inside of her, it seems grey. Not a single shape standing out strong enough to hold on to. She curls up.

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A black car prowls through the empty streets of some forsaken area. Buildings lying about like industrial waste. An occasional fearless tree struggling to remain upright in the ceaseless beating of the rain. Branches hanging low, color shredded from the leaves. The color of her eyes. His eyes the color of the clouds, ever darkening as he glances around, examining the tiniest nooks and crannies for their qualities as a hiding place.

An obsolete darkness falls as he continues his search, street after street winding around block after block, his headlights beaten down by the rain. The buildings looming around him are probably as empty as they seem, having been locked down years ago. The car skids to a halt as he jams the breaks, mimicking the action of his thoughts. How is he ever going to find her here? She could be in any of these buildings, save and dry, or somewhere else altogether, comfortable with a cup of coffee.

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The door of the car falls shut behind him. He doesn't feel the rain, only feels this nagging doubt. Everything is connected. But what about people? Why can't he just know where she is, if he has to _know_ that something is wrong? He breathes in the rain. Mouthfuls of damp and of liquidized dust, memories rising up through the ground, tastes of grey and ashes.

His calls for her are swallowed by the rain, washed away into the ground, trickling down and further down. He listens for anything that could be taken as a reply. Somewhere ahead the rain sounds different. He approaches the singularity, raindrops washed down steps by their predecessors.

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He hastens towards a shape of ever so slightly more substance, separating the water momentarily, sending ripples clashing against the walls and playing with a few strands of her curls. He's on his knees, ignoring their immediate shivering contraction upon contact with the ice cold liquid. His hand hovers just above her face streaked with rivulets of water and curls.

He fixes his flashlight in the metal grid just behind her, becoming aware of a touch of blue veiling her. He tries to rub the cold and wet from her face, but his hands offer no warmth or dryness. Carefully he pulls her up and close into his arms, water from her curls running down his spine. He keeps calling her, softer now.

He feels her shivering against him, then suddenly a jerk, a whisper he doesn't understand. He lets her head sink against his arm, her eyes are still closed. He calls her again, is rewarded by a flicker of a response in her eyelids.

"Stella. Are you okay?"

This time he reaches her.

"Yeah."

The barely audible whisper is accompanied by a nod, but her eyes tell him otherwise. Cold green, like glass. The spark only a memory, a reflection. He sees her eyes wander aimlessly along the ceiling and down the walls. Fixing on something just as he is about to pull her closer again. Another whisper, this time he understands, following her glance. He understands.

"It's okay, the power is down."

He sees no signs of the power not having been down before the water reached her. Disentangling his flashlight he places it between her hands. For a moment she struggles with him, unwilling to be carried. He welcomes the return of even the slightest hint of her spark, but still he overcomes her. Frustration curls her mouth, dimming the spark again.

"Mac, I… I'm sorry. What I did yesterday was stupid and …" Her voice sounds worn out.

He interrupts her gently. "It wasn't, you were right. I shouldn't have …"

"No, no! You were right, and I risked …"

"Stella! Don't …" He stops himself, silence falls with the rain. "We are not going to have this argument the other way round now, are we?"

She pulls herself up along his collar, sinking herself into his eyes. She rests her head against his cheek.

"I didn't want to have it the first time round." reaches his ear.

"I know," he whispers back, "me neither."

He lets her sink into the seat of the car. She watches him rummage through the trunk, bringing forth a blanket. She pulls him closer as he wraps it around her, snuggling up and tugging the ends tightly around him. A smile begins to brighten her face. She passes it on to him with a kiss. He returns it immediately, it reaches her eyes.

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**So that's what such weather draws from me. Please let me know what you think, I need a bit of cheering up! And a lot of sealant... or the other way round.**


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